HISTORY AND RESTORATION

T

he principal house was designed and built in 1927 by A. Mannerelli, a leading architect of his day, for the influential Domingo Durán Morales family. Domingo Durán was a leading Chilean politician and businessman of his day. He made his fortune building railway lines connecting remote parts of Chile and was a member of the National Congress as a representative of the rising Chilean middle class.

He married Julia Neumann and had three children: Domingo, Julio and Marcela. The children lived in the house for most of their childhood and beyond, as the family continued to live in the house after the death of Domingo Durán Morales in 1961. His sons Domingo and Julio went on to become prominent politicians in their own right, one of them running as a Presidential candidate in 1964.

For several decades the dining room, which houses the restaurant today, was the scene of “Legendary Thursday Political Lunches”, where every week for 30 years was an open-house for leading figures in Santiago’s political and social life, including President Alessandri and others prominent elite figures. Afternoons were spent in heated discussions that helped build the discourse of the Chilean middle class of the day.